Punalur: P Ramachandran Nair, the retired police constable, who confessed that he had, under threat to his own life from higher police officials, shot naxelite leader Varghese dead at 6.55 pm on February 18, 1970, passed away on Thursday night. He was under treatment after suffering from asthma for a long time.
Police had then described Varghese's death as an encounter death at the time of the incident - when Varghese was apprehended by the police, he fired a shot at the Superintendent of Police who in self-defence fired back resulting in the death of Varghese.
According to the former constable, the order to execute the Naxalite leader was issued by the then deputy superintendent of police K Lekshmana. However, the policeman was pulling the trigger to lit the fuse of controversies 28 years later in 1998, that once again revolved around the alleged repression and human rights violations perpetrated by the State's political leaders, especially K.Karunakaran and the Rajan case as his political rivals alleged.